


End of my thought

by crimsonepitaph



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depression, Explicit Language, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:53:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5787664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean finds Sam's journal. Nothing can be the same after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's note #1:** Title is a variation on the quote:"The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.", by Leon Blum.
> 
>  **Author's note #2:** The story is set at the beginning of season 7.
> 
>  **Author's note #3:** Written as an entry for this year's round of spn_reversebang, based on the inspiring art created by milly_gal. Ever since I caught a glimpse of it in the claiming post, I knew I wanted to write for it. I was lucky enough to have the chance, and working with milly_gal has been an absolute pleasure. A big, big thank you to her for all the support she provided, and, of course, for the amazing art. Which is [[here]](http://milly-gal.livejournal.com/1136265.html) \- let her know how awesome it is! :)
> 
>  **Author's note #4:** No post would be complete without confessing my eternal gratitude for my wonderful beta, borgmama1of5. She edits, structures, corrects, understands and improves my stories - always. I am tempted to write a thank you in all caps, followed by about a hundred exclamation points. I think that would adequately convey my feelings. I'm sparing everyone the eyesore, though.

**PART ONE**  
  
“Dude. You stink.”  
  
Sam frowns at him. “The chick. The lunch you’re wearing on your suit,” Dean says as he points towards the vomit on Sam’s pants and shoes.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“You’re not getting in my car like this.”  
  
Dean’s joking. Except now Sam looks like a kicked puppy before he manages to school his features into an expression appropriate for the hunter and grown-ass man he’s supposed to be.  
  
“Then I’m going back in to ask more questions and saying that you puked on me when you saw the body,” Sam replies in the time it takes Dean to process the minute, practiced change in Sam’s features.  
  
Dean curses. Sam gets in the car with a smug grin.  
  
It’s only when they arrive at the motel when Dean realizes how good Sam is at this.  
  
He’s lying so well Dean’s starting to believe him.  
  
  
  


    

 

“Going out to get food. Want anything?”  
  
Dean just looks at Sam.  
  
“And beer,” Sam adds quickly, eyeing the small mountain of empty cans near Dean’s chair.  
  
Damn right. The door closes with a soft click, because Sam is a control freak, and it’s three in the fucking morning, and Dean’s mostly trying not to fall asleep.  
  
It’s the fourth night like this.  
  
It’s another case in which Sam is digging too deep. And Dean tried what is known to normal human beings as calm, sensible reasoning, because, the Cage, and Death, and the wall, and everything, but Sam’s set to extreme guilt frequency, and if Dean didn’t understand him so well, he would have been trying harder to convince Sam that what he’s doing is definitely not the smart thing.  
  
It’s the crapfest that is the Winchester life, and Dean’s too tired to argue with it.  
  
He rubs a hand over his face, curses when the gesture doesn’t make the cursive writing in the old book stop swirling and dancing on the pages.  
  
He needs – well, he needs a real drink. But it’s a working night, so beer it is.  
  
He decides on a shower. It should help a bit.  
  
And at least Sam won’t bitch about hot water in the morning, Dean thinks to himself as he gets in.  
  
  
  


 

 

Dean’s awake.  
  
Mostly. The shower was cold, he didn’t use the slimy shower head as a pillow, nor did he lie down in the bathtub in a general fuck-off to humanity, so, victory.  
What’s not a victory is his one-handed search for clean clothes in his duffel – he finds some boxers, and a pair of jeans, because those have a shelf life of about three or four cases before washing – but any kind of shirt or top is a lost cause, either drenched in blood or stinking like a frat dorm room.  
  
He grunts, curses, and switches to Sam’s duffel.  
  
Sam’s usually neatly folded clothes are in disarray, just a big tangled heap shoved into the duffel  – by the black circles Sam’s been sporting as eye patches lately the tidiness of his duffel isn’t at the top of his list – and Dean decides the best way to deal with it is to empty it on the bed.  
  
Dean finally grabs something not pastel colored, tries to free it from the heap of oversized clothing acquired from the Salvation Army. But the action proves too much for whatever system of folding – twisting – Sam had going, and the whole wad disintegrates in his hands, falls back on the bed in a way that Dean just knows he’ll have to pick up piece by piece.  
  
He starts doing exactly that, cursing colorfully, but he’s stopped in his tracks when a little book, dark and leather-bound, falls through the mess and lands at his feet.  
  
If he had the energy, and he actually thought it’d help, he’d raise his head and pray to whatever deity has cursed him.  
  
As it is, he just bends over and picks it up – he’s a bit miffed that they had another lore book that could help and Sam forgot in the duffel. On the other hand, yesterday he spread toothpaste on his face instead of shaving cream, so the pass Sam’s getting on this is justified, he thinks.  
  
But when he sneaks a glance at the open pages, he’s frozen in surprise momentarily – it’s handwritten, and not like any other book or journal he’s seen. Because he’s ninety nine percent certain that he’s looking at Sam’s handwriting.  
  
The other one percent he reserved for the off-chance  it really was a lore book is blown away as he reads a few random words –this is Sam’s journal, Sam’s most hidden thoughts, and the answer to all Dean’s curiosity over the years.  
  
He stays like that, freezing, tiny rivulets of water still running down his back, staring at the tiny book like it holds the deepest secrets of the universe.  
  
He shouldn’t do this.  
  
Really, he shouldn’t. Just putting it back would be the right thing. He and Sam are glued together with blood, sweat and tears as it is, and Dean has the sneaking suspicion that it’s the things not said that keep it that way.  
  
At least, for him. If he gives in, if he admits to everything – then it’s real. It’s a part of him, like Sam always is, but different, in ways that he won’t ever be able to carve out, pieces that attach themselves to his insides for so long, that he doesn’t know what he is without them, and he’s afraid, he’s really fucking scared of losing what he has left – his mind, his control, his sanity.  
  
But nobody said Dean ever did the prudent thing.  
  
He sits down on the bed, some pieces of clothing still left on it, and starts reading.  
  
It’s not like it’s going to change anything, he thinks.

  
  
             _So. Right. This is a journal. I’m … writing. My thoughts. And fears._  
  
 _Am I supposed to be laughing?_  
  
 _Jess said it would help. Jess is too much of an optimist._

  
  
He can imagine the frustrated pout on Sam’s lips, brows creased in concentration, and his thumb and forefinger playing with the corner of the page, like he always does when he’s thinking.  
  
It’s pretty straightforward, and nothing Dean hadn’t expected. Sam might be the more touchy-feely of the Winchesters, but he still is one, and that equals less than average skills at communication. Frankly, all Dean expects to get from this is some blackmail material – the thin journal that almost fits in his palm doesn’t hold much promise, even in Sam’s unnervingly neat handwriting.  
  
               _Well. Okay. Um. Trying again._  
 _  
I … don’t know where to start. Jess says that I should write whatever comes into my mind. But that is kind of the problem. There’s so much going on I don’t know if I could ever put it into writing._  
 _  
Maybe I should start with one of those essays. Who I am._  
 _  
Seems less boring than babbling on about the paper I have to write for Ethics and can’t concentrate on._  
 _  
But that’s another problem. I don’t think I know who I am. I know what I am not. And that makes me wonder_ – _what if everything I’m doing is based on a negation of everything I don’t want to be?_  
 __  
What if I’ve done this for the wrong reasons?  
  
  
  


   

 

_I got an A on my paper today. It felt good. I wanted to share it with somebody.  
             _   
_Somebody that knows what this really means._   
  
_Jess is trying. Sometimes, it’s enough. And sometimes I still miss Dean._   
  
  


 

           _Today was … good._  
  
 _Less bad?_  
  
 _I’m not good at this._  
  
 _Fuck. I don’t know. What does it matter what I think? Who does it help? Me? Jess? Us?_  
  
 _It doesn’t seem like it._  
  
  
Okay, so, Sam in all his angsty teenage years is leaping off the pages, throwing Dean back to the wonderful days where Dean couldn’t even say hello without Sam throwing a temper tantrum and half the time, whatever object he was holding.  
  
Sam’s always been a sad kid, Dean realizes as he continues to read the entries.  
  
The brooding thing – that doesn’t date from their father’s death, or even the Apocalypse.  
  
There’s stories of Jess, how she made him breakfast cookies, how she kicked his ass when they went running in the morning.  
  
And yet the feeling of loss, melancholy – it drips from every word, seeping for no known reason into happy stories, like a shadow that can’t be hidden in the sunlight.  
  
And the tightness in his chest – Dean feels it like it was him that lived through all of it. He leafs through the next few pages, which all seem to cover Sam’s time with Jess – and Dean, however much he’d like to know every detail, every word, to know that side of Sam, decides that it’s something that he can’t allow himself to do.  
  
He’s intruding – the voice at the back of his head promptly snickers at his sudden scruples – but there are things that should stay Sam’s memories, beautiful and faded.  The truth, though, is that Dean wants to keep the conviction that Sam was happy, that his four years at Stanford were the escape Sam wanted, that Dean’s pain had at least bought his brother what he wanted.  
  
He stops again when he sees his name.  
  
              _Dean says, Easy, tiger. Dean talks like he doesn’t remember._  
  
              _My skin burns where he touches._  
  
              _My mind still hasn’t accepted the image of Dean, here, now, being a reality._  
  
              _Jess’s voice is far away, and yet, she’s right beside me._  
  
              _Dad’s on a hunting trip, and hasn’t come home in a few days._  
  
              _Dad hasn’t come home in too many years, Dean, don’t you realize it?_  
  
            _This isn’t how it was supposed to be. He hates me. He hated me. I left. Wasn’t I selfish?_  
  
             _Dean didn’t stop me._  
  
            _I thought he would._  
  
Dean stops reading. _The fuck._ Revisionist history. Still. Maybe –  
  
            _Blood._  
  
            _My eyes._  
  
            _My hands._  
        
            _I see in the mirror. But I knew. I dreamed. Fire. Fire breathes through me, and that’s all I am, all I will ever be._  
  
          _My fault. She wasn’t you, and I didn’t protect her._  
  
          _Jessica’s eyes were so green. Why did I always see yours, Dean?_  
  
That one is scribbled in the bottom corner of the page, and Sam’s writing is uneven, shaky.  
  
The next entries, scattered haphazardly, consist of comments on cases that boil down to Sam asking why things had to be this way. Great, Sam. Great use of time, complaining.  
  
Then hurried, in an almost indecipherable handwriting.  
  
          _Dean’s dying._  
  
          _Not quite in a blaze of glory, like he always imagined, just slowly, every minute, every hour turning weaker, paler, turning more into something Dean was never supposed to be._  
  
          _Dean’s dying. I’m not letting him._  
  
Dean wants to laugh, hysterically, at how much sense the last sentence doesn’t make – only he knows it would come out as his memory of the fear of Sam doing something for him, the fear of losing him and the guilt – and the contradictory fear that Sam didn’t care enough to do something.  
  
He’s ashamed. He had doubted it. What Sam was feeling.  
  
Dean still remembers Sam’s words in the Roosevelt Asylum – they’d hit bullseyes, no matter how much Dean would endure before admitting it. He still hears that hollow click of the gun. He still sees Sam’s eyes. Hateful, blazing in the dim light.  
  
As a kid Sam had looked at Dean and still believed, giving Dean reason to hope, too, that the monsters they were hunting weren’t all there was.  
  
But Sam grew up, and changed, and his eyes shone in the light again, but it was different, he looked at Dean in a way that Dean didn’t understand, so Dean chose his own meaning for it.  
  
Dean scrubs a hand over his face, breathes deep.  
  
He closes the journal. He doesn’t know if he can do this. He doesn’t know how – he wants to keep reading and yet he’s not certain that if he does there would be anything left of him and Sam. He thinks there would be only fractured pieces, words dissolved on worn out pages, truths that define too much of himself and Sam.  
  
He’s still lost in thought when he hears the familiar rumbling of the Impala’s engine outside. Dean gets up, throws the journal into his own duffel, hopes like hell Sam forgets about it in the next few days or at least doesn’t do his laundry in the immediate future, and by the time Sam pushes the door open with his foot, arms full of food and research juice, Dean has what he hopes is an innocent smile plastered on his face.  
  
Sam stops two feet away from the table, still performing a balancing act with his hands, to stare at him.  
  
“What?” Dean asks, and it might be more forceful than necessary.  
  
Sam pauses for a few more seconds, then shakes his head. “Nothing.”  
  
He starts putting the bags and the twelve-pack on the table, and with his back partially turned to Dean, shrugs. “You’re naked.”  
  
Dean looks at himself.  
  
 _Fuck_.  
  
He is.  
  
He’d been too distracted to even put on his boxers.  
  
“See something you like, princess?” he says as he grabs a random plaid shirt of Sam’s, but it’s half-hearted, sounds wrong in his mouth.  
  
Sam stays silent, moves books from the table and gets the food out.  
  
Dean watches, numb.  
  
Admitting that, for the first time in his life, he is nervous to be in the same room with Sam.  
  
  
  


   


 


	2. Chapter 2

**PART TWO**  
  
  
Dean stares at Sam.  
  
“A snowman,” Dean deadpans, because _really_.  
  
Sam shakes off the white powder on his jacket and glares at Dean.  
  
“Trying to poke you with his carrot.”  
  
Yeah. Dean’s a child like that.  
  
Sam throws him a look that makes Dean want to reach for something to put between them.  
  
Just in case.  
  
“I don’t get it,” Sam says, suddenly, plopping down in the chair, almost – defeated.  
  
Dean mumbles something through the last bites of the sandwich in his mouth and Sam takes that as his cue to continue.  
  
“I mean, it’s not like a lighter didn’t take care of it.”  
  
Dean makes a motion with his hand, because Sam is lost in his head again, over-thinking, and is taking forever to get to the actual point.  
  
Or maybe Dean’s just antsy to get back to their room, to the little journal he’s hidden at the bottom of his duffel. He hadn’t gotten another chance to read, because close quarters with a six-foot-four eagle-eyed, overgrown little brother doesn’t make it easy to do something secretly.  
  
The secrets they have are locked in their minds, behind barriers that help them believe they’re actually lucky to be alive, after everything.  
  
“ – he wanted to kill me – kill _us_ – but he’s not doing a very good job.”  
  
Dean catches the last part. “You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing.”  
  
Sam frowns. “It’s concerning.”  
  
“I swear you have different definitions for some words than most people.”  
  
“Dean, look at it: first there’s stained glass stars falling out from the sky, killing people – _in the middle of the day_ , I might add, then they stop – spontaneously – after a few minutes. Then there’s freaking lions in the stores and in people’s nice, suburban houses – lions who, we found out, are cuddly and not at all threatening. Which is a sentence I never thought I’d say out loud. And now a goddamn snowman tries to kill us!”  
  
“You.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“He was trying to kill you.”  
  
Sam just stares at him.  
  
“Probably took issue with the Bigfoot thing, stealing his popularity,” Dean adds, proud of himself. He gets up, throws some bills on the table and leaves Sam and the smoke that must be coming out of his ears to follow him.  
  
  


 

Dean’s not proud to admit that the case holds little interest to him.  
  
It doesn’t seem like whoever or whatever is doing this has any actual intention to kill anyone –the falling stars thing might have been a fluke, he thinks. The snowman – well, that was just funny.  
  
Seeing Sam battle it out with a ten foot mountain of snow actually had him pause to decide whether he should reach for the phone to take a photo or for the machete.  
  
As it is, what he would really like to be doing is to be in bed, with Sam’s journal, and a bottle of whiskey.  
  
He needs alcohol to get through it. That was the first thing he realized after he decided that he has a spot saved in hell where Sam doesn’t ever forgive him for this.  
  
Dean finally has a chance, because Sam is sound asleep in the motel room and, okay, sitting in the Impala in twenty degree weather might not be the best idea he’s ever had, but it’s the only chance he has to do this.  
  
So he reads.  
  
He takes a swig, and reads all the things he doesn’t want to know.  
  
      _Dean blames me._  
  
      _It doesn’t matter. He’s alive to do it._  
  
      _He blames himself, too._  
  
      _And I want to kiss him. And I want to punch him._  
  
      _And I love him. Why can’t he see himself the way I see him?_  
  
      _How do I show him? How do I do that without begging him not to call me a freak, a monster, something to be disgusted with?_  
  
      _I don’t understand why I’m like this. Why I can’t be normal._  
  
      _How can I be a normal brother when I’m in love with Dean, when I fall asleep wishing he was in my arms and I was kissing him?_  
  
      _How can I be a normal hunter when I think I’m one of the creatures we are hunting?_  
  
     _Jess, wherever you are … I’m not sure that doing this was such a good thing._  
  
Dean sits there a long time, and he’s cold, he’s numb, and his fingers brush over like Sam’s writing mindlessly, like they can change it, like they can change their meaning.  
  
He’s stuck. In time, in this moment.  
  
He knew. On some level, he knew. All the things he’s reading.  
  
But they were always buried deep, scratching at his insides, clawing their way into a present that was never the right moment. This thing between them – it’s built on trust as much as it is built on the things left unsaid, and Dean doesn’t know if they can survive a truth deeper than they are, carved in their bones and inked into their scarred souls over all the wounds.  
  
It’s all they have. Each other. And if the last few years have proven anything, it’s that as much as it should be, it’s not always enough.  
  
Dean doesn’t know – what this means, what to do, _how to be_.  
  
It’s a reality that Dean doesn’t yet completely understand.  
  
He reads on, blind to the world, to anything but _this_ , these words that will be his salvation or his ruin.  
  
      _Sarah is nice. Sarah makes me laugh._  
  
      _She makes me laugh in a way that the world fades around her and me. I’m not a hunter. I’m not a hero. I don’t want to be._  
  
      _And I still wonder, did I love Jess for who she was or for who she made me be?_  
  
More scribbling on the bottom of the page. Dean struggles to decipher the small letters.  
  
      _Her skin is soft. Her laugh is soothing._  
  
      _She’s everything I want her to be._  
  
      _And she’s nothing, because she’s not you and I’m me._  
  
Dean breathes, slow, deep, tries to get back to some semblance of normal breathing.  
  
      _Dean’s trying. But Dean only sees what he wants to see._  
  
      _I wonder if Dad ever loved me._  
  
    _I know he loved Mom. I know he loves Dean. I know he’s a good man who’s trying._  
  
    _But I still wonder – the me, the real me, the one who went to college, the one who was never as good as he should have been, the one with … wrongness inside him._  
  
    _I see it in Dean’s eyes, too, how he’s searching. For what, I don’t know. Sometimes, I give into the illusion that he knows me, that maybe he’s worried._  
 _Then I remember that he doesn’t want to, not as long as I’m still me, still the kid who left him._  
  
    _How can they ever say they love me if they don’t know me?_  
  
    _Then again, maybe I don’t know me._  
  
    _I just know what I want to be._  
  
  


   


 

 

    _It’s dark, and the headlights are blinding._  
  
    _I hear your scream. Dad’s. Your call to me._  
  
    _And I know._  
  
    _This is it._  
  
    _And then I open my eyes, and I hear nothing. I want to scream._  
  
    _I do. Maybe it’s your name, maybe it’s all the secrets I wanted to tell you, and maybe it’s nothing you will ever hear._  
  
    _I want you to yell. I want you to hit me. I want you to talk to me._  
  
    _I want you to hate me._  
  
    _I just want you to be, Dean._  
  
Dean turns the pages with fingers that are too cold, deprived of sensation, just like the rest of him. The whiskey burns going down, the only thing keeping him tethered to this new reality.  
  
     _It’s my fault._  
  
    _This, and Mom, and a million other things that have made this life so fucking hard for us, for me, for Dean._  
  
    _I hold on to the hope that’s not true, but every time I look into Dean’s eyes, I see. I see all the things I did wrong, all the pain that I caused, and everything I can’t be._  
  
When?  
  
How?  
  
Did he?  
  
Dean ignores the wetness on his cheeks, even when it drops to the journal’s page and blurs the writing, and he thinks maybe that’s good, that’s perfect, because Sam – his Sammy can’t think this, can’t have ever thought about him like this.  
  
     _Dean takes his anger out on the Impala._  
  
    _I’m not angry._  
  
    _I’m just … tired. It’s everything, and most of all, the realization that there are things that I can’t fix._  
  
    _I choose him. I choose Dean. I always will._  
  
    _And fitting into a pattern, into the guidelines that Dad always set for me … that’s easy. It’s the easiest thing right now – I don’t have to be me._  
  
Sam’s right. Dean never knew a thing about him.  
  
    _I’m free._  
  
    _There’s only darkness and blood, and the choice is taken from me._  
  
    _I can’t remember Meg. I just remember the silence. The voices that I don’t have to fight every day, the ones that tell me the truth, that tell me what a monster I am._  
  
    _But the blood on my fingers is Dean’s._  
  
    _Because he didn’t kill me. Because he’s a better man than me._  
  
    _I wish he did._  
  
    _I wish he didn’t have to._  
  
    _I wish so many things._  
  
So does Dean.  
  
And yet, he’s here, reading this.  
  
  _I am strong. I am Death, and the Death is inside me._  
  
  _It flays and scratches at everything I used to be. The darkness seeps into my thoughts, and, trouble is, this time, I have no remorse to meet it._  
  
  _So, tell me, Dean, who am I now? Who do I want to be?_  
  
  _Tell me who I am without you and what you are because of me._  
  
The scribblings – that can’t be Sam conscious, or at least not at full capacity. Maybe drunk, maybe high from painkillers, _something_ –  
  
Just the memory of that moment, watching over Sam, so still –  
  
  _I’m not myself, and it’s been a long time since Dean’s been Dean. And yet, he was never more himself than in that moment, looking up at me, when I could read into his eyes all the reasons why he made the deal._  
  
  _I can’t believe he did it._  
  
  _But I can. It’s why I love him. He’s selfish in the ways Winchesters always were, selfish in surviving in the only ways we know how, in the only ways we were taught._  
  
  _I hate Dad for making Dean think that he’s not worth anything. I love him for making Dean into the brother and man he is._  
  
  _It’s the Impala, again, city of nowhere, and Dean’s singing along to the tune of the radio, and he’s dying, he has a year, and it’s all because of me._  
  
It seems like they’re moments stolen from a dream, from a life that doesn’t belong to him.  
  
He’s not proud that he keeps reading.  
  
  _I dream, I dream, I dream._  
  
  _I can’t sleep._  
  
  _There’s only nightmares. Hellhounds whistling, and blood, and parts of skin, and – you. Why are you leaving me?_

 

  _Tuesday #28._  
  
  _Every day. He dies._  
  
  _But whatever joke of the universe this is, I’m telling them all, I’m saving him, even if I die trying._  
  
  _Tuesday #37._  
  
  _Nothing’s working._  
  
  _I changed everything. Why? Why is this happening?_  
  
  _Tuesday #63._  
  
  _I can’t do it anymore._  
  
  _I’m useless. I’m the failure that they all said I would be._  
  
  _I can’t save him._  
  
  _Tuesday #97._  
  
  _Dean died today. Electrical fire._  
  
  _I didn’t even get to see him today. When I woke up, everything was burning._  
  
  


 

 

  _Wednesday_  
  
  _I killed Dean today._  
  
  _He was shot in the gut by some robber. When I closed his eyes, the only thing I could think of was that it might be the last time I see that shade of green._  
  
  _It took me a long time to admit to myself that a part of what I felt was relief._  
  
  


 

 

 

  _The song. I can’t get it out of my head._  
  
  _Every time I look at you, it plays, again, and again._  
  
  _I have no answers. I have no hope. I’m failing you. I don’t want to live like this._  
  
  _I’m right behind you, Dean._  
  
Dean throws the journal away, in a desperate attempt to breathe, to feel something, something other than this – the feeling that drowns him, that sucks all the air around him, that makes the tightness in his chest overwhelming, unbearable, like –  
  
He doesn’t know – is the world ever going to be right again?  
  
Can it be?  
  
Dean gets out, sways a little on his feet, but manages to keep upright by putting a hand on the hood of the Impala.  
  
That night, when he sleeps, he dreams he’s in hell.  
  
And Sam’s right there with him.


	3. Chapter 3

**PART THREE**

 

“I can’t believe it was a kid. The stars –”  
  
Sam’s babbling on about something. Dean thinks it’s the case. It’s not like he can concentrate on anything.  
  
“ – he had them in his room, on his ceiling, and he thought that it would be fun if they were outside, too. And the lions – “  
  
Right. The kid. He didn’t want to kill anybody. Just had some powers that he didn’t know what to do with. Typically. The plush animals come to life – that was his way of feeling less lonely.  
  
“The snowman, though, I don’t get,” is what Sam says, diving into the awful looking salad he’d ordered, and something clicks in Dean’s mind.  
  
“It’s a story,” he replies mechanically.  
  
Sam frowns at him. “Huh?”  
  
“He had a book, some Christmas gift from some well-intended relative. The snowman was the villain, tried to kill the kids because they didn’t give him arms and a mouth.”  
  
Sam almost chokes on the green leaves that must be drier than the desert.  
  
Figures. Serves Sam right if he orders salads.  
  
“That’s in a children’s book? Are you serious?”  
  
Dean shrugs. “People are weird.”  
  
Sam nods, like Dean said something wise, and Sam agrees with him, and Dean doesn’t know what that means, because the Sam in front of him is the Sam he’s always been, and yet it’s a Sam he didn’t understand well enough to guess what is now more than clear.  
  
He sees, now.  
  
The little gestures Sam makes that scream at Dean, in neon pink letters, that Sam needs more from him. The touches followed by the scared looks, like Sam had finally admitted that this thing between them means more to him.  
  
The carefully chosen words. The looks. The rare smiles.  
  
Sam needs something more from him. And God help him, Dean wants it too.  
  
  


 

There’s just the song playing on the radio.  
  
The guitar riffs.  
  
It’s soothing. It’s another night, but this time, Dean is way too lucid.  
  
He reads.  
  
  _I still wake up to Dean’s screams._  
  
  _Alcohol helps. Ruby does, too. She helps me fall, fall into the monster I was always supposed to be, into oblivion and numb peace._  
  
  _Her body is warm, tiny but strong._  
  
  _She’s what I need._  
  
  _She makes me strong when I don’t know how to be._  
  
  
  


 

  _Dean’s alive._  
  
  _He’s alive, and more beautiful than I’ve ever seen him._  
  
  _Dean’s alive, but I’m not sure Sam – his Sammy_ – _is._  
  
Sam’s right. _Sammy_ died right along with him.  
  
Maybe that’s why it was so hard to understand it.  
  
When he came back –  
  
  _I don’t know if there’s enough left of me._  
  
– there wasn’t much left of Dean, either.  
  
  _Let me piece you back together. Let me hold you. Tell me. Tell me how they ripped you open, how they flayed your skin. Tell me your hell, Dean._  
  
  _Let me carry you. Let me be your brother. Let me be what you are to me._  
  
Sam was.  
  
In his own twisted way, Sam helped him.  
  
Dean found his humanity, his hope, his fight again in his brother, in the Sam he never wanted to see.  
  
The monster who did unspeakable things, and the human who thought it was for the right reasons.  
  
  _Mom knows._  
  
  _Mom knows it’s what I have to be._  
  
  _She understands me._  
  
  _I_ _’m doing it for Dean. For the world. For me._  
  


 

 

  _You left me to rot in there. Am I more human now? Am I more alive? Am I worthy? Will I ever be, Dean? Have you ever thought, it’s not the demon blood? Just me._  
  
  _I have._  
  
  _You don’t know me. You love me. You can’t understand me. You can’t let go of me._  
  
  _I wish you did._  
  
It – he knows, he’s crying, and it doesn’t matter, because Sam’s right here, open to him, bare, like he’s never been and never should be.  
  
The tears are nothing, just memories finally escaping, and Dean pays no mind to them, because he has to go on, finish this.  
  
He needs to know there’s a happy ending to it.  
  
He forgets there isn’t.  
  
  _He touches me when I’m not looking. He leans on my back when he looks over my shoulder, when I show him something on my laptop. His fingers brush mine when I reach for the motel room keys before him. He puts a hand on my knee when he thinks I fell asleep in the passenger seat. I feel the warmth seeping through the jeans, I feel his fingers on my skin, and I want more –_  
  
  _See, the moment stretches into infinite in my mind. And yet, whenever I open my eyes, Dean’s hands are always on the wheel._  
  
  _He’s not even talking to me._  
  
  _I deserve it._  
  
  _We’re strangers riding in a beautiful car, and the world’s ending._  
  
He remembers. He wants to do all the things Sam imagined.  
  
But then – it was hard, even looking at him.  
  
  _I smell the blood, I feel the grip it has on me._  
  
  _It would be so easy. To give in, completely, lie to myself that I’m doing it for the right reasons._  
  
  _I felt invincible, and now …_  
  
  _Now I’m just what Dean tells me to be._  
  
  


 

  _I’m free. I’m normal._  
  
  _I’m alone, and I’d give everything not to be._  
  
  _I’d give everything to feel your hands on my skin._  
  
  


   


  _It’s a good plan._  
  
  _Why fight it so much? You already hate me._  
  
  _The monster goes back in a cage, where he should be._  
  
  _I stopped understanding you, Dean._  
  
  


 

  _Lucifer is almost a welcome presence._  
  
  _At least he doesn’t pretend I’m somebody else when he’s with me._  
  
  _Let me go. Dean. Please. Who am I? I see my hands on you. What have I done?_  
  
  _It’s me … It’s always me that’s wrong …_  
  
  _I see, I see, I see._  
  
  _Make it stop._  
  
  _Rip me open. Leave me to Lucifer. Forget me. I forget who I am. It’s blood that defines me._  
  
  


 

  _It’s the only choice. Tomorrow._  
  
  _Goodbye, Dean._  
  
  
No.  
  
He – it can’t be.  
  
He feels like he’s there again, watching Sam fall, endless, too fast – and the wind – he can’t see.  
  
All Dean can think is how this was the last thing Sam thought before dying.  
  
The nightmares.  
  
Dean was tired. The world was ending.  
  
They needed to be heroes.  
  
And now the world’s at a standstill, as fucked up as it’s always been, and Dean understands more than he ever wanted to, and he thinks of all the things he keeps hidden.  
  
When the cold morning air hits him as he steps out of the car, Dean’s smiling.  
  
For the first time in a long time, he believes. In Sam. In them. In him.  
  
The words of the last entry are etched into his mind, written in all the blood they’ve spilled over the years. It's on the back page of the journal, probably written in a drunken haze. Probably something that Sam would never admit he'd written - even to himself.  
  
  _You’ve closed your eyes so many times. You’ve closed your eyes in my arms. I was Sammy. I am what you make me. You build me. You. You, worthy of everything. You, who smile and die in my arms, every day, every time. I am what I choose for myself. Good. Bad. I am my choices, I am evil, I am a hero, I am everything in between._  
  
  _My brother. Please don’t love me._  
  
  
  


   


 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**EPILOGUE**  
  
  
The white stripes fade, swallowed by the car and the past, and Dean thinks –  
  
This is _home_. This is perfect. This is what he needs.  
  
“So, what did you think, Dean? Should I send my journal to a publisher?”  
  
Dean’s heart clenches. ”Sam …”  
  
“Is it the next Fifty Shades of Grey?” Sam continues.  
  
It’s a joke, in the fucked up way their life always is.  
  
Dean pulls over, abruptly, with no warning.  
  
There’s just silence. The silence of a place that's been forgotten by the worl, silence that feels raw, unending, enveloping the surrounding trees in a fog.  
  
 “I’m sorry,” is what comes out of Dean’s mouth, even when that isn’t what he intended on saying.  
  
Sam laughs.  
  
“You shouldn’t be, Dean. We make mistakes.”  
  
Dean doesn’t believe it.  
  
Sam looks at him, fondly, and also sadly. “I can be mad at you, and still love you all at the same time. ”  
  
Right. Okay. Right there, uncomfortable territory.  
  
And still – this is what they’re doing. They’re putting everything on the table.  
  
“How much does it change things?” Sam asks Dean in a low tone.  
  
Sam’s staring out the front window. He can’t look at Dean.  
  
So Dean answers him the only way he knows how. With his hands. With action.  
  
He turns Sam’s chin towards him, and he finds eyes brimming with tears, and a mouth he’s dreamed so many times of kissing.  
  
He does. He presses his lips to Sam’s, and they’re rough, a little dry, and Sam tastes of coffee, and this is Dean’s heaven, right here, this moment, this first for him.  
  
Dean pulls back, but leaves his hand cupping Sam’s jaw, brushing away the stray tears on Sam’s cheek.  
  
“I can’t believe that’s what you got about the whole thing,” Sam says, and Dean laughs out loud, because he can in this moment.  
  
Dean starts the car, and he’s driving, and he’s holding Sam’s hand in his.  
  
And it’s wrong, and the world’s going to hell again, and it’s on them, and it doesn’t really matter, any of it – because Dean finally found hope again, and it’s right beside him.


End file.
